


Battle lines - stories from The Old Republic

by lilith_morgana



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-06-10 15:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6962734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilith_morgana/pseuds/lilith_morgana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assorted fics and drabbles about my SWTOR characters set during main game and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Those isles of yours that wait for me (Aric Jorgan/Female trooper | Zakuul )

**Author's Note:**

> Random stories from my SWTOR Legacy. I'll add spoiler warnings for KotFE at the beginning of chapters where it's needed.

_(set during Chapter XI of Knights of the Fallen Empire; minimal spoilers for storyline)_ ****  
  
  


 

It's the first time she sees him in five years and immediately he's an _itch_ inside her, an inward wound just out of reach.

She wonders if she's been a barbed wire through his mind in her absence, if the image of her has been the point where his thoughts catch and blur.

She wonders – only for a second, only until she sees the way he looks at her when they're done trailblazing through the wilds – if there have been others.

Cathar mate for life, they say but people say a lot of things. Camp's full of it tonight. Everyone's heard the rumours about the Major and the Outlander – _thought he was married to the job; wasn't he a widower; never heard him mention a wife; five years, son of a --, shows what the galaxy has become_ – so nobody asks them anything. They go about their routines in silence, that slow trickle of soldier life that she's missed like it's a part of her body.

She wonders how he's missed _her_ , in which ways these last five years made him break; she isn't sure she can stand the truth but they have never spared each other from that.

”It almost earned me a psych discharge,” he tells her, his tone still professional but only in parts, only _barely_ . 

She can feel the weight of her own composure fade away as he closes the distance between them and it's _home_ , even in damp fucking wilderness on a hostile planet.

  


\---

  


It's the first time she sees him in five years and she might have expected it to be frantic like their first time back on the Thunderclap, rushed like all those times in transit, between missions, during hours borrowed and stolen.

It's not.

Aric's hands are firm around her waist but they linger there, pressing her to him and her arms are wrapped around his neck, his back, fingers working their way up to touch his face. She doesn't even kiss him, not at first. He doesn't move, she doesn't speak.

He's a half-forgotten language when he finally moves his mouth over her lips, her forehead, the buried secrets along her neck and she sheds the disaster of recent operations when he part her legs slightly with his thigh, drops every sorrow of the galaxy and forces every concern into the dark corners where they no longer fit.

They fuck like strangers, like offworlders learning each other's words for _yes_ and _don't stop_.

For _never leave me again_.

  
  


* * *

 

Light sweeps over them both, briefly, the second day on Zakuul.

It's the broad shape of his back that undoes her, a scent of sweat and heat and soap that hits her in a flurry as she watches him get dressed in their tent. He reaches for his belt; she's still in bed, reaching for him. There's no protests.

”I've missed you,” she says with her thumb trailing the length of him through the fabric of his pants. It's part of a familiar routine, still fresh in her mind, part of clenched teeth in the unmonitored inches of the briefing room, part of fingers getting stuck in her hair and growled half-protests. ”Shit, it's not even been _that_ long for me, I can't imagine... I've-”

He silences her with a kiss, shakes his head and closes his eyes but she can catch a glimpse of the desperation there at the bottom of his gaze, can see a darkness that wasn't there before.

She wonders what he sees when he looks deep into her eyes, wonders if he dares.

They fuck like two people starved, grasping and clawing their way to survival.

  
  


* * *

 

 

They don't win but they don't lose too much either and these days they've changed the meaning of so many things. Victory. Peace. _Hope_.

Then Aric starts talking about using the seeds of rebellion for their own cause, his eyes flaring up as he speaks and it's a blow to her gut.

That night, bodies full of kolto and bruises, they fuck like it's the first and last time, a beginning and an end. They’re scavengers, explorers, _cartographers_ , forging paths and carving patterns that will sustain them a lifetime if necessary.

Afterwards, spread out on bedrolls on the ground, she refuses to let him go. If he finds it odd – she's a loner in bed, wants personal space and the freedom of sleeping alone; he's always teased her about it – he doesn't mention it now.

So much they don't mention now.

”You have new scars,” she mutters instead when her fingertips discover a few, scattered over his left shoulder.

”Yeah.” He nods; she feels his body shift slightly. ”Forex isn't half as good in a trench as you. Too bulky. Among other things.”  
  
She grins into the warmth of his chest where the curve of her mouth is pressed into the hard lines of muscle and bone.

”I should have been there.”

”Yes.”  
  
There's no blame in his voice, no guilt in hers; there are fingers sprawled across marked territory and hands reaching for everything that's still unexplored, leaving nothing untouched.   
  
  



	2. Hunger (Female Consular & Zenith| post-Balmorra)

The Jedi eats like someone who has known starvation.

In the bright cantina lights, among the flickering beams and noisy crowds she devours peppered Bantha steak without speaking, without looking up. There's method in it but it's lost in the quiet desperation of her hands, her mouth, the fixed stare into her plate. Old habits, he wagers. It's too seamless to be part of a game of deceit and he's known enough of that in his life to be able to tell it apart from truths hammered into your bones.

Zenith watches her; when she notices his gaze she seems to come to a halt, as if she's waiting to correct herself. Instead she merely nods, unmoved.

After that, he sees it in everything. The little sliver of familiarity, the breadcrumbs of _sameness_ in the way she carries herself, the way she questions, _endlessly_ , the motives and motivations of everyone else. He supposes it might pass for a scholar's curiosity for the nobles and the bureaucrats and for Jedi strangeness for the soldiers here on Hoth, but Zenith isn't an idiot. There's a furious greed in the heart of someone who's lived with nothing, an ache that can't be covered up with codes or ideals – he knows this: every morning he wakes up and every night he goes to sleep he _knows_ just how deeply the years _without_ have destroyed him, darkened his mind way more than the war ever did.  
  
The Jedi speaks of peace but Zenith watches.


	3. In a thousand futures (Female Consular/Felix Iresso | Rishi)

  
There's a Master on Rishi who can see the future, all possible versions of it. Or so he claims.  
  
”Would _you_ want to know the future? Our future?” Felix's words circle the air between them for a long time before they settle. He wants the question to sound casual. It's not.  
  
”Of course,” she says because she has promised herself not to lie to him, not about anything.

  
  


\---

  
  


One of them is dark, the Order scattered and hunted; most are dead but she's in exile, always in motion.   
  
Like the stars, Felix says.  
  
For a long time, nearly a whole life, he's with her as she flees. They use their real names – Felix and Delabele – but take every safety measure they can find and it's enough, for many years it's _enough_. This is no life for children so they never have them, it's never even a possibility. Their bodies know better than their hearts.  
  
There are empty spaces where their children would have been, Del thinks even as they age, grow too old for both childbirth and constant running.  
  
When Felix is killed, she closes her heart around the absence he leaves and decides to stay exactly where she is.  
  
It takes sixteen years for them to hunt her down and kill her and even then she takes five of her attackers with her as she goes. A dying star in a pitch-black night. 

  
  


\---

 

Another one is bright and brittle like ice.  
  
There's a house on Dantooine - _Barsen'thor's palace_ some locals call it, half-joking - with a library's worth of holos and grass that grows wild and free outside. When the boys are small they hide in it, crouching and giggling until they're found. Four boys, all of them dark-haired and brown-eyed  and tall as trees, all of them showing signs of the Force.  
  
In a different world she'd be terrified.

  
  


\---   
  
In one of them they hide among the smugglers and Hutts on Nar Shaddaa. Merc work is solitary business, nobody asks the wrong questions as long as you point at the right target and finish the job.    
  
It’s not a good life nor an honest one but it’s  _ life _ .   
  
  
\---

  
  


In most of then the Sith secrets stored inside him are exposed by any means necessary. Sometimes by Jedi, sometimes by Sith, mostly by others.    
  
In all of them, her revenge is brutal.

  
  
\---

  
  


In one - the last one, _real_ one, she thinks though she knows better - there's a garden, far away from the Core Worlds.  
  
In the evenings they sit there with the day wrapped around them; his hand on the small of her back, her hand on his knee. They’re old, older than anyone living during a war can possibly imagine, and life has bent and broken their bodies but left their spirits unbowed.   
  
He still calls her sweetheart.   
  
  


 


	4. Just deserts (Female Smuggler/Risha | Corellia)

  
The wine’s too sour and the music in the cantina is too loud.   
  
Adeve frowns into her drink, finishes it in a large gulp and looks at Risha who’s by her side, still working on her glass of whatever passes for whiskey on Tatooine. There’s been mercs and assassins in hordes and despite having much more urgent matters to attend to, she’s ordered downtime for them here. Everything hurts. Head to toe to that strange little beat in her chest, thumping and swooshing.   
  
_Is your heart broken, little girl?_ __  
  
“So, could you do it?” Risha asks suddenly.   
  
“Do what? And yes, I probably could.” It has always felt like a good thing, a solace in this crazy galaxy to be aware that the pragmatic always devours the idealistic. Tonight she’s not so sure. About any of it.   
  
“Get married.” There’s a solemn tone in there somewhere and Adeve can’t stand it; she averts her gaze and starts staring at a couple of twi’lek dancers in the corner instead. The one to the left is gorgeous in a blatant sort of way, like Adeve prefers. More honest that way. Cards on the frizzled pazaak table. _Darmas, you scum._ “I’ve seen how you wander off, wherever we go. Could you get married? _Stay_ married?”  
  
Adeve blinks, signalling at the bartender for another refill. In her memory, Corso is on his knees, his stupid frakking _knees_ , and he tastes of warm sand and sugar but it’s not for her. He always knew. She hates him for asking because he always _knew_. _I’ll try anything once_ , she told him once as his hands came around her waist and she hooked her leg around his hips. He had looked at her like she was the suns and moons of his universe and she had wanted out almost as much as she wanted to be fucked, properly and wordlessly by the handsome farm boy. _Everything tasted and tossed away_ , someone said to her once, a long time ago now. _You’re like a toddler in a toy store._   
  
“You asking?” she says and her tongue feels thick in her mouth. Her new drink arrives, slips down her throat. Fluid medpack, only better.   
  
Risha shakes her head but the corners of her mouth twitch. There are moments when Adeve thinks - somewhat bewildered - that she might say yes. There are moments when she __hopes.   
  
There are moments like these.   
  
“Do you ever listen?” The other woman downs the last of her whiskey and shifts position in her chair. “I’m still talking about the Count.”  


“You’re falling in love with Count Goody-Two Shoes aren’t you?”   
  
Is there jealousy in her voice? In her head? Adeve opens her mouth again but closes it, against her own words. It’s just a  _ mess _ , all of it and she’s so unbelievably tired of it all. Of running, of being fast on her feet and quick on the draw and having a plan B for  _ breathing  _ at the end of the day. For someone who hates pain, hates  _ suffering _ , Adeve sure knows a lot about it. So yes, she tells herself. She is jealous. At the idea of stopping for a while, catching up with your own thoughts.    
  
“Don’t even - “ Risha grimaces, cutting herself off. “I know this is not your strong suit but you’re the only one I can ask.”   


Sitting up properly, Adeve nods. “Is there anything  _ I  _ wouldn’t do to get rich and powerful? Nah.”    
  
“That’s a yes?”   
  
“I don’t know.” She finishes the remains of her wine, not even flinching at the taste now. “Not sure I’m very good at planning for a happy ending.”   
  
“Who said anything about happy endings?” Risha chuckles under her breath as she leans in, decreasing the distance between their bodies with every word. This is what they do, sometimes. Drown their boundaries in booze and half-assed flirting. It had seemed to make Corso’s head spin way back in the beginning, had made him stomp out of many cantinas on their journey. “Don’t go soft on me now, Captain.”

Adeve leans back, orders another drink.    
  
  
\--   
  
  
On Corellia, in a cantina where the music can’t be loud enough for the full-scale war outside, Risha sits beside her without saying a word. Her hand rests on Adeve’s for a split second, her thumb rubbing over scarred knuckles and hardened skin.    
  
They don’t speak.    
  
And when they do kiss, finally and properly, Risha tastes of spices and metals.    
  
Of goodbyes before they’ve even begun. 

  
  



	5. Force (Female Consular/Felix Iresso | Yavin 4)

Most of what goes on down on Yavin 4 is above his paygrade. Like way, _way_ above it. A whole hyperspace jump above it. Jungle warfare aside there are relics and Revanites - the history behind it is so messed up that even Del who rarely frowns at anything Force-related looks puzzled as they piece the fragments together.  
  
There’s a restless energy around her here; Felix doesn’t have to be a Jedi to sense the fluttering kind of unease that seems attached to her frame. They say the dark side flows in great magnitude in the lush forests, that for a thousand years those who wish to understand why or how has never returned from their adventures. _That’s not right_ , Del hisses under her breath. At night, back in camp at the Coalition staging area or outdoors among the wild beasts depending on whether or not they’re allowed to use mechanized travel, she sits quiet in mediation or paces the outskirts. Mostly the latter.  
  
They’ve been hunting Revanite commanders all day, until a bunch of massassi had forced them to retreat and recuperate and here they are, tending to their injuries and restocking medpacks. _Do so in strength and do so in joy_ , Lord Ray’en had commanded when he explained the task and Felix had glanced at Del by his side, seen that hard glint in her eyes whenever she listens to people she considers fools. He wonders if it’s merely the coalition that gets to her; he is almost afraid to ask.  
  
“You okay?” he asks anyway as he catches her alone in front of their tent.  
  
“Huh?” She looks up at him, her long hair tousled and full of leaves. Seeing them scattered there like child-made decorations or weird Jedi jewelry - _no possessions, only the Force and handmade leaf hats allowed_ \- makes him grin and she frowns, confused. “What’s funny?”  
  
“Nothing.” He clears his throat. “I wanted to check on you. You seem… tense.”  
  
Del lets out a breath. It sings in the air between them, hums like a soft sigh.  
  
“This place is just, I don’t know. The Force is strong here. _Chokingly_ strong.” She presses her hands to her legs, standing up. So _tall_ , he thinks even after all this time. Not used to women being up there with him, not used to never having to lean down to kiss someone. “And Sith lords everywhere.”  
  
“Yeah.” Felix isn’t at ease either. Hasn’t been for many years, longer than he cares to remember but that’s nothing new, it’s just the kind of wire they put in your thoughts when you sign up to carry a blaster; he doesn’t miss _before_ , not even out here in the jungle. Rarely devotes time to regrets or longing since it makes no difference either way - you’ve got to deal with what you’ve been given or die trying. He has no intention of dying just yet and, by the stars, she isn’t allowed to either. “Funny thing though: the stories I’ve heard about the Imperial guard? Make them seem worse than the Sith.”  
  
“You’ve got an odd sense of humor if that’s _funny_.” Her voice has softened, dropped a note or two. Felix can feel it in his entire body as she takes a few steps towards him. When they’re alone like this she’s under his skin in a second, making his chest seem crowded. The pull there, he thinks. If the Force is anything like it, he’d be completely lost in it faster than any Jedi master could say the word ‘restraint’.  
  
“How does it work, in a place like this? The Force, I mean. The dark side. Can you… is it tempting?”  
  
Something freezes mid-air. Perhaps it’s his trail of thought, or hers. Del watches him for a moment, her expression unreadable. _Way to ruin the mood, Iresso. No Jedi smooching for you._  
  
“Always,” she says then, simply and matter-of-factly. He shouldn’t be surprised by her pragmatic outlook, not _still_.    
  
“Really?” He is, still.  
  
“Really.” She smiles, slightly, one of those in-passing gestures she offers him out in the field or when they’re surrounded by others. “But I don’t surrender.”  
  
“Right.” This he knows. It’s one of the things he had found most terrifying and endearing about her from the very beginning - that sharp mind she has for strategy and for reading the fight. Any fight. If she hadn’t been Force sensitive she’d probably be in a war room somewhere, barking orders for her troops. Instead she’s in the middle of the battlefields, all blazing light and deadly moves and Felix all but gasps as her arms come around him now, her mouth hot over his, her hands already on his hips and ass.  
  
“Make me,” she whispers, her voice little more than a breath. Her body is pushing against his and his head spins a little at the notion of warm curves under his palms, the texture of her robes slipping between his sprawled fingers.  
  
They’re inside the tent within seconds and Felix is inside _her_ , greedy like it’s the first time, filling her up as she mutters obscenities in his ear. All these contradictions are what floor him, this impossible, intoxicating flurry of details that makes up Delabele, Barsen’thor, Hope of the Republic and his very unofficial but _very_ real wife.  
  
Sometimes it’s tender. Early mornings when they’re both barely awake but reach for each other, his body calling out for hers and they come to their senses, gradually, in each other’s arms. She kisses his shoulders, he brushes over the fascinating planes of her lower back with his lips.  
  
Sometimes - more often than not - it’s hurried. Quick couplings, fast on their feet like spies in enemy territory. She has a way of taking him in her mouth that renders him useless in no time; he knows a spot deep inside, knows exactly how to let the pad of his thumb find its way where Del’s just a mess of incoherent words.  
  
Sometimes it’s harsh and hard and unpredictable like an ambush. Her nails digging into his back, his teeth scraping over her throat, her entire body fighting itself not to blow up in a blaze of whatever it is that drives her as he fucks her until they both struggle to breathe.  
  
She rests her forehead on his stomach; he swallows, still tasting her in his mouth. Salt and milk and blood. Power. She’s a force of the blasted galaxy and he’s hers, helplessly hers until the end of time.  
  
Beneath their bodies and above their heads other forces soar and beckon but Felix watches as Del closes her eyes and falls asleep, one arm around him as she lets go.


End file.
